Refrigerant leak in freezer ?

Rhino666

Hi

I recently sold my large chest freezer on ebay but the new owner wants a refund, claiming it does not work and is not getting cold. He says that a cooling engineer has inspected the freezer and says that there must be a refrigerant leak somewhere.

I had the freezer working two weeks ago and I ran it for half an hour the day before he took it. Although I didn't check for cooling on that occasion, there was no abnormal sound from the compressor and everything seemed fine. The freezer has stood in my garage for the last 4 months and there was no abnormal smell, etc.

If the refrigerant had leaked sufficiently to stop cooling, would the compressor be affected and sound abnormal ? Is there any other way I could have known about a refrigerant leak ?

Thanks

Rob

BobProperty

I've always had the opinion that when you move a fridge or freezer there is a much greater chance of one of the pipe fracturing or some bit which is weak through corrosion breaking. So it can sit happily in the back of your garage for 20 years but the moment you move it, some important component will go and facture on you and the coolant will leak. I don't know where you stand legally as the buyer will claim it should work and you can say it is a reasonable risk that it might break and/or they were not as careful as they should have been when they moved it.

Rhino666

Thanks Bob

I agree with what you say and am in little doubt that transporting the freezer 50 miles by road caused the problem.

I decided to refund the money for the freezer as the buyer spent money on the courier and an engineer - bad news all round really :-(

George_Bray

Rhino666 wrote:

I recently sold my large chest freezer on ebay but the new owner wants a refund, claiming it does not work and is not getting cold. He says that a cooling engineer has inspected the freezer and says that there must be a refrigerant leak somewhere.

I would have expected that any half-decent refrigeration engineer would check for certain if there was any refrigerant in the system. And, if there's not, he could probably half found the leak, repaired it and recharged the system...which may be what they'll do now they've got the freezer for nothing. The only other (main) things that are likely to go wrong are a broken compressor (expensive) or a broken thermostat (very cheap). The engineer should have determined exactly why the freezer wasn't working. Sadly, you never know who to trust.

Regards
George

amboy

BobProperty wrote:

I've always had the opinion that when you move a fridge or freezer there is a much greater chance of one of the pipe fracturing or some bit which is weak through corrosion breaking. So it can sit happily in the back of your garage for 20 years but the moment you move it, some important component will go and facture on you and the coolant will leak. I don't know where you stand legally as the buyer will claim it should work and you can say it is a reasonable risk that it might break and/or they were not as careful as they should have been when they moved it.

Had to laugh when I read this as it brought back memories of having to replace 2 fridges this year in rented properties when new people arrived and after cleaning and having to move fridges. Hey presto a fridge that worked for sooo many years suddenly stopped.

Rhino666

George_Bray wrote:

I would have expected that any half-decent refrigeration engineer would check for certain if there was any refrigerant in the system. And, if there's not, he could probably half found the leak, repaired it and recharged the system...which may be what they'll do now they've got the freezer for nothing. The only other (main) things that are likely to go wrong are a broken compressor (expensive) or a broken thermostat (very cheap). The engineer should have determined exactly why the freezer wasn't working. Sadly, you never know who to trust.

Regards
George

Hi George

I know what you mean and I am not used to anything mechanical going pear shaped on me. I spend all my time repairing other peoples damage and restoring stuff.

I am taking my motorbike for a little trip tomorrow in order to pick up a few spares from this freezer for a friend who is having problems with his - should address any uncertainty.

The thought of someone ripping me off would indeed kill me.

demented_2

Did the buyer remember to leave the freezer unpluged and in the intended
position for 24hrs before switching on? Cos the gas'es need to settle down for at least that amount of time before being connected. We got a second hand freezer on freecycle and left it standing for 24hrs and it has been fine.
But as some one said re the engineer you just can't trust anyone.